Last Summer
by Nekare
Summary: A week before Harry's seventeenth birthday, Hermione and Ron to to Privet Drive, and the three of them end up enjoying what could easily be the last summer of their lives. HBP spoilers, slight HrR.


I loved writing this so much, for Moony's 20 random facts about Ron Weasley. I do believe we've all forgotten about the main thing about Harry Potter, friendship, while we're busy with our shipping wars and whatnot. So this is the way I try and rectify it, that even when Hermione and Ron get together, Harry is still one of their most important people, and they would never forsake them. Hope you like it, and reviews are better than chocolate.

**Last Summer**

**By: Nekare**

**July 25 1997**.

On Friday, Ron and Hermione knock the door of Number Four, Privet Drive, after a side-along apparition from The Burrow that left them both slightly queasy; and they are met with quite a big amount of shrieking when Petunia Dursley recognizes him. Hermione shakes her head at Harry for not having announced their coming, and Harry shrugs before turning to the irate Dursleys at his back. _They're qualified wizards already,_ he says with his hands on his pockets and too much authority in his voice,_ and they can use as much magic as they please. I don't think it is in your best interest to cross them, now is it?_ (a lie, they can't use magic on muggles.) Petunia sputters, Vernon's face glows with anger and Dudley hides beneath the table; and Ron can't help but laugh at the thought of this people ever being threatening enough for Harry to sleep in a cupboard. He's a leader now, and weirdest of all, he's not jealous of him. He's proud, instead.

And as he locks gazes with Hermione after Harry leaves the kitchen with his last words set on stone for the terrified muggles he knows she feels the same.

That night, in Harry's room, out of the blue, Harry says he probably isn't going to live through this war. He stops their protests with a hand gesture, and proclaims this summer as the one he will do everything he never (or will never) has had a chance to do. Hermione sighs, and says that that's all very nice and all, as long as he doesn't leave them behind.

Harry smiles, and says he never planned to.

**July 26 1997 **

They go to a club on Saturday, the place Dudley said to be the most popular in town under wand threat. Ron doesn't think this is such a good idea, and Hermione looks uncomfortable in the muggle blue dress that she wore to a wedding two years ago (so different from the flowing dress robes she had wore to Bill and Fleur's weeding); ill fitting, too short to her liking and the only somewhat elegant muggle clothing that doesn't have pink bows in the back from when she was ten. (Ron doesn't mind it, though). But Harry seems to think this is important to his self discovery journey, so they go with him, trying to ignore the fact not one of them is a decent dancer, and that they will feel as out of place in a room filled to the top with teenage muggles as a duck trying to look as a monkey.

The three of them ignore the Order member failing to be inconspicuous in the back of the club and get so drunk even Hermione doesn't remember to pull down her dress anymore, twirling with the mindless abandon of leaving everything behind and focus on the strange music that tickles Ron's eardrums and beats inside his chest, flares of accidental magic coming from the three of them as sparks that get lost in the crowd. The bright lights and the people surrounding them makes them sweat, and Hermione's hair looks bushier and bushier as times goes by; and when Ron tangles his hand in it and gets closer to her, Harry by their side dancing quite badly with his eyes closed; he blames it on the alcohol.

The war is still out there, but for only a few hours, under the intoxicating spell of the music, they can pretend the world isn't falling to pieces.

**July 27 1997 **

Ron is entranced by the television on Sunday, and Harry and Hermione cast worrying looks at him from across the living room, where they're mixing a tracking potion they found on a heavy book Lupin borrowed to Hermione by the end of term for further study. They are planning to use it to track Nagini, if they can actually manage such a difficult potion. Ron was taking a break when he discovered the television, and now he's become hooked, a way to get the idea of using the Half-Blood Prince book out of his head, an habit by now. So far, the only tangible result is the foul odor that made the Dursleys ran away from the house in hope they won't see it defiled and wronged by magic.

Ron watches cartoons on silence, mouth hanging open as he watches this little red-headed boy with purple gloves invent weird metal looking technology, and his eyes only move from the enchanted box when Hermione calls him to lunch and pulls a thin black noodle from the wall, looking slightly exasperated. Harry is amused by his interest though, and when they give up with the potion after the third time it blows up on their faces he turns it on again and slips some square thing into a slot. They sit on the couch and the box comes alive with the image of a very anatomically incorrect mouse (mouse, they all think in their heads, trying to convince themselves, not a rat) wearing a wizard hat and doing quite advanced looking wandless magic as he makes the water jump and elephants dance.

_I thought you didn't know about magic before Hogwarts, Harry,_ says Ron with awe in his voice at the moving images, so pretty, and he is ignoring Hermione's little smile, the one that tells him he's doing something either very stupid or adorable. Knowing Hermione as he does, it's probably both.

Harry smiles softly and says _I didn't. This is just a fairy tale for muggles. And the Dursleys only bought it because Dudley wouldn't stop crying, the hated the idea of something remotely magical on their house. I wasn't allowed to watch it, but I hid behind the couch after dinner once and they didn't notice._

Ron stares at him with a frown, the same as Hermione, but Harry doesn't say anything else, staring with a smile at the screen, light reflecting on his glasses; and that night Ron hexes the Dursleys underwear to itch all day long.

The next morning, he realizes Hermione gave them a rash.

**July 28 1997 **

Harry decides he wants to ride on a roller coaster on Monday, and Ron wonders what exactly it is right before it starts to move, his gaze moving confused from Harry's sweating face and tight grip on the cart and the way Hermione's face has turned slightly green. Then they're moving, and he suddenly knows why no one told him what this strange machine does. The cart plummets to the ground, his stomach readjusting itself somewhere near his throat and the feeling of being torn away from everything (muscles, bones, secrets, desires and fears) and leaving it all behind makes him alight with freedom. Hermione's hair flies behind her, the brown locks getting into his eyes; and as Harry laughs with innocent glee at his right and Hermione screams with horror at his left, Ron finds himself unable to form any kind of sound. He smiles and waits for the rush to be over, taking mental notes about the ride to tell his dad.

Harry likes it so much (_It's almost as good as a broomstick! no wonder the Dursleys wouldn't ever let me ride one,_) that he goes alone to stand on the long line again, and as soon as he turns his back on them, Ron finds himself holding Hermione's hair as she throws up. He still wants to hold her as she sits beside him in a bench, looking haggard and with green tinted skin, and that's when he realizes he might be up for something real.

(Strangely, he isn't as scared as he should be at this revelation.)

When they leave, ice cream on their hands and the taste of joy in their mouths, Ron can't help but think Harry looks as if he gained a childhood in a day. They all know their hands will probably be stained with blood in a few months, so they bask in it; the sweet looking glow of the innocence they had thought was lost.

(Later that night, Lupin appears in the middle of dinner, to the chagrin of the very much terrified looking Dursleys, but his speech about the wrongness of evading the wizard that had been set to watch over them lacks strength as he sees the pure happiness in Harry's eyes.)

**b July 29 1997 /b **

They dream on Tuesday, laying under the tallest tree in the park Harry had been just before the dementor attack on Dudley in Fifth Year, staring upwards to the canopy of leaves, the only shade in a mile. This was Hermione's idea, and the three of them take turns to daydream of the future in the dry weather (and try to ignore the fact not one of them thinks there'll be a future for them). Harry says he's always wanted to go to India, since he had had a crush on an Indian girl back in primary school. Ron laughs and punches him lightly on the shoulder, and Harry blushes lightly when Hermione tells him she finds it sweet.

Hermione surprises no one when she tells them she would love to work in a library, and the way she smoothes the grass beneath the fingertips, as if it was the yellowed pages of the ancient and dripping with magic books she loves so much makes Ron slightly jealous in a very ridiculous way, and the feeling is crushed before it can be left alone to grow up. He says something silly like owning his own Quidditch team, and as they all laugh, Harry's whisper of _I want a family_ almost goes unnoticed. They stay in silence, and a few minutes later, Ron speaks managing to keep his voice from wavering. _You already have one._

And all right, maybe he isn't speaking of Hermione in the same brotherly way, but he means it, and as he feels her hand slipping into his silently and sees Harry's easy smile he thinks that they may not be related by blood, but he loves them both so much in so different ways that they may as well be.

**July 30 1997 **

Hermione insist on going back to the amusement park on Wednesday, and both Ron and Harry complain when they realize she doesn't really want to go back in there, but instead she wants to go to the zoo next to it. She says she had noticed it while being at the top of the world on the roller coaster, and Ron has to admire the way she could still think while her stomach refused to work along with her.

Harry demands a chocolate ice cream for some strange reason, and he eats it slowly, savoring with something akin as revenge in his eyes. Ron wonders, but he doesn't ask. They get to the reptile house after a couple of hours staring at caged animals and the strangest mystery for Ron, Muggles (dressed in too bright colors and their laughing in a peaceful world bringing jealousy to him); and suddenly they know why did Hermione insisted on coming here. _This is as good a chance to learn as any, Harry, and you know you'll need to learn to control Nagini,_ She says when Harry hesitates to enter, and at the mention of the possible Horcrux Harry takes a long breath and a step forward.

The snakes start hissing almost as soon as they see Harry, scales bright in the artificial light that still baffles Ron, and when Harry hisses a hello each one of them slithers closer until they're practically against the thick glass that keeps them captive. To both Ron and Hermione's surprise, Harry and the snakes actually engage in a conversation, and they all end up sitting on the concrete floor while Harry translates the whistling sounds that come out of his lips with the same ease as his English; and when they all laugh at the story of one of the rattle snakes that came close to freedom only to be found on the sewers three days later, Ron can see the way Harry seems to have lost his hate for Parseltongue.

When they finally leave, Harry knows hot to sweet talk a snake until it does his bidding, and Ron can stop talking about how wickedly cool those snakes were, and whether his mother will allow him to have one as a pet. _I'll never allow one in our home, so get rid of the idea already,_ Hermione says, realizes what she just said and blushes.

Harry teases them, and Ron has a smug smile on his lips for the rest of the day.

**July 31 1997 **

Harry confesses to having nicked the cigarettes earlier that day, and Hermione only fakes annoyance for a little while until she accepts one and lights it with the tip of her wand. They're waiting for Harry's birthday, sitting in the almost black porch with butterbeer bottles empty besides them (an early present from Fred and George). Hermione only takes a couple of drags, and she crushes it underneath her shoe clearly fighting not to gag. Her clock ticks midnight, and after she hugs Harry and Ron gives him a vary manly one armed hug (at which Hermione snorts about the idiocy of boys) Harry takes out his wand and turns the entire wallpaper in the house a deep green color, a spell that will fade within the week, if Ron can read the sparks of magic well enough.

Hermione calls it a night, and she mutters a goodnight before going back to the house, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. The two of them remain there, though, and they lay on the grass watching the stars and passing the fag every few minutes. They cough loudly and choke on the silvery smoke that looks pale in the night, laughing at everything and nothing. _You're my best mate,_ Harry says after a stretched moment of silence,_ You know that, right?_

_Yeah,_ Ron says languidly, and takes another drag. _Happy birthday, Harry._

Harry chokes for all response, and they laugh until their eyes water and they can't even remember what exactly they're doing in there. Ron can feel youth and life flowing in his veins, his heartbeat falling in rhythm with the crickets in the garden; and he realizes he's happy, content at being with the two people he loves the most after his family. _You're just buying time,_ his treacherous mind thinks, but he ignores it and enjoys the moment.

In a few hours, when the sun rises, they'll leave this house and enter reality once again. Ron takes the cigarette from Harry's fingers, and inhales. _Yes, _he thinks,_ remember this moment._


End file.
